Enhanced Interrogation, the Report on Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation, and the Return of Kriegsraison

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the Report on Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation in December 2014 detailing the use of enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Defenders of enhanced interrogation often justify the use of such techniques based on military necessity and efficacy. In this essay, Benjamin Farley argues that by relying on military necessity, defenders of enhanced interrogation techniques are actually relying on kriegsraison'a long-discredited military doctrine that holds that the laws of war may be overcome in the face of extreme danger or simply to achieve the object of the war. The essay examines the clear and continuing rejection of kriegsraison at international law and traces the development of arguments justifying enhanced interrogation.

Benjamin Farley urges for the rejection of any arguments based upon the doctrine of kriegsraison and upon using torture as an effective means of warfare.